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Small business owners require staff to help with various processes in their businesses. Whether it is in the accounts departments, as sales agents or casual laborers in the warehouses, business owners have to recruit workers to help with these crucial business operations. When recruiting workers into their fold, those who have expressed an interest in the open positions are interviewed and the best from the lot are hired. This seems to be standard procedure but it is lacking in one critical aspect; background checks. People are not always who they say they are and businesses risk hiring dangerous people into their workforce when they fail to carry out the necessary background checks before hiring. Small businesses will have to pay for the background checks in the United States to be done by a professional. It may appear costly at first but these checks help businesses maintain peace and harmony in their organization by only hiring employees that meet the professional standards demanded by the firm.
Why background checks are important.
The competitive nature of the job market is one of the reasons job seekers choose not to reveal their illegal past dealings and character traits. Employers always hire the best from a pool of applicants and to increases their chances of getting hired, job seekers hide their shortcomings and criminal records. Some even go ahead and present fake academic certificates and credentials. Business owners that are not careful can, therefore, end up hiring an unqualified individual with a criminal history into their workforce. To make sure this doesn’t happen, businesses are encouraged to perform background checks on potential employees before hiring. Here are some of the reasons why these checks are important.
- To verify the applicants’ academic credentials.
Some functions in your business require certain skills that are only gained through education. Accounting, supply chain management and public relations are some of these functions and those hired to these positions must have proper training in these fields. A background check will verify whether the certificates presented by the applicants are genuine or not and this helps the businesses make informed hiring decisions.
- To check past criminal records.
A criminal past speaks of a person’s behavior and temperament. Businesses looking to keep the environment in their workplaces safe and conducive for business operations should, therefore, have a background check done on job applicants so as to determine such records. Background checks will determine whether an applicant is a listed sex offender, on the terrorist watch list or a violent criminal.
- To keep the workplace free of drugs.
Background checks will unearth instances of drug use and abuse by an applicant. Drugs interfere with the productivity of employees in the office and one way of ensuring that the workplace remains free of drugs is by ensuring that the firm doesn’t hire people with a history of drug use and abuse. This is only possible with a background check since most people tend to hide their narcotic past when applying for jobs.
Conclusion.
Background checks help employers make the best hiring decisions by highlighting everything about the applicant. Make it a mandatory practice in your business for the best results.
This is costly and time-consuming but ensures the companies safety. Preventing any unwanted or unqualified candidates to be hired. This is really a must thing to consider in screening candidates.